Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Annnnnd We're Back!

Happy, er, Tuesday! Long holiday weekend! Beautiful weather! I hope you did as I did and got out from behind the computer. Any fresh, hilarious assassination references lately?

But let's get back to Condi. Some of you may have been surprised that I totally ignored her visit to Google with David Milibank on Thursday. Truth is, I was just saving it for a more elaborate treatment (preview above) involving everybody's favorites, the Condi Hand Turkeys! That'll be at Wonkette later today in a fresh Condi Roundup. I'll post the link when it's up (it's up). Yay!

Saw Madeleine Albright this evening at Stanford University. She was very well received. When Albright made reference to Condi being one of Stanford's brightest--one person clapped. The packed auditorium went silent at the mention of Condi's name. If this is any indication of the welcome Madame Sec Rice will receive when she returns...oh well.

The Stanford Daily news is taking a vote re: Condi's return--for or against. "For" response has a greater proportion. The comments are hilarious.

Wow...another mean article about the "real" Condi from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5804656.html

"McClellan's criticism of Rice — who he pegs as "hard to get to know" — is blistering.

"I was struck by how deft she is at protecting her reputation," he wrote. "No matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean, even when the problems related to matters under her direct purview, including the WMD rationale for the war in Iraq, the decision to invade Iraq and post-war planning and implementation of the strategy in Iraq."

McClellan predicts a harsh historical review of Rice.

"But whatever her policy management shortcomings, Rice knew public relations well. She knew how to adapt to potential trouble, dismiss brooding problems and come out looking like a star," he wrote. "Few performed better under the spotlight, glossing over mistakes with her effortless eloquence and understated flair."

PSP, I read the transcript that you linked to Rice-Miliband's trip to Google on Wonkette's website.

I laughed at this part: "This has been a fundamentally different period in American history and a period of great consequence. And it’s not something that you can reflect on from within it. You really have to get out of it and do so. But I was Provost at Stanford, and if there’s one thing that I defended and defended unconditionally, it was the right of the faculty to hold whatever view they had and to express it freely."

If you talk to people at Stanford or read Mabry, Bumiller, and Kessler's condiographies, the last statement is laughable. Many faculty and staff talked about how Condi didn't seek or respect other people's opinions. She often pounded the table and had a temper tantrum when she didn't get her way--a far cry from her supposedly steel magnolia personality.